Sweden is moving away from criminal rehabilitation in favour of US-style mass incarceration, experts have said, as the country prepares to rent places in Estonian jails to help house its rapidly expanding prison population.
The move to outsource prison places is one of a slew of policies aimed at transforming the Swedish criminal justice system as the centre-right government struggles to tackle gang violence and prisons warn of overcrowding.
Last week the justice department said it had instructed Kriminalvården (the Swedish prison and probation service) to “make the necessary preparations” for the Estonian scheme.
Under an agreement signed by Stockholm and Tallinn in June, up to 600 prison places in the Baltic country are expected to be made available.
According to a recent Kriminalvården report, Sweden’s prison population could – in the most extreme scenario – grow from 7,800 this year to 41,000 in 2034 as a result of more punitive policies driven by the far right.
Observers say it represents a marked shift for a country which for decades prided itself on prison policies focused on rehabilitation and reintegration.
Sweden is not set up to cope with a rise in the numbers being sentenced to jail time as the government grapples with an unprecedented wave of violence brought about by gang crime.
The prison service chief of staff, Joakim Righammar, has said Sweden’s prisons are in a “crisis situation” of overcrowding.
The number of children facing lengthy periods in prison is particularly striking: in recent years, a change in approach has led to children as young as 15 being jailed for 10 years or more.
The government, which depends on the support of the far-right Sweden Democrats, is now considering a proposal to lower the age of criminal responsibility from 15 to 14 for severe offences.
The main opposition party, the centre-left Social Democrats, have said they would support such a move. The Sweden Democrats have called for the age to be lowered to 13.
For the first time, next year, the government also plans to introduce youth prisons in place of the current secure youth care homes, where young offenders are usually placed and the maximum sentence is four years.
The justice minister, Gunnar Strömmer, said the deal with Estonia marked “an important step to relieve the Swedish prison and probation service” from a “pressured situation”.
He added: “For it to work in practice, careful preparations are required. It is crucial that everything from security and legal certainty to cooperation with Estonian authorities are ready to function properly when the agreement comes into force.”
But others have said the numbers are a drop in the ocean compared with what is needed. “If we’re looking at having 40,000 prisoners, then 600 cells is not going to do much,” said Emelí Lönnqvist, who researches crime policy and prisons across the Nordics at Stockholm University.
Lönnqvist said Sweden was abandoning its belief in rehabilitation and becoming more focused on punishment and “locking people up”. The government and the Social Democrats were pandering to the far-right, she said.
“It’s quite terrifying that everything is happening without much debate around it,” she said. “We’re looking at basically mass incarceration like we have seen in the US and we know that it doesn’t work. We know it’s the opposite: it’s going to make things worse.”
She added: “The notion of stability and a humane rational approach to crime policy, that’s just gone in Sweden at this point.”
Olle Jonasson, a Stockholm pastor who spends time talking to children as young as 15 who are in custody – suspected of serious crimes including murder – said politicians were too focused on punishing vulnerable people instead of rehabilitation.
Most of the children he sees, he said, have “no criminal identity” but are used like “single-use objects” by gangs, while many of those ordering the violence evade punishment abroad.
“I am not saying they should go without consequences; of course, they have done these serious crimes, so they must have treatment,” he said.
“But we need to lose this ‘punishment thinking’ instead of helping them find a new chance.”
Society, he added, “is trampling on the weakest link”.
The proposal to send prisoners to Estonia – 250 miles away, across the Baltic Sea – still needs to be approved by the parliaments of both countries, but the Swedish justice department expects the agreement to be in place by the summer of 2026.
The justice department denies it is moving towards mass incarceration and away from rehabilitation, citing work it has done on prevention.
• This article was amended on 12 July 2025. Owing to an error introduced during editing, an earlier version referred to the Black Sea when Baltic Sea was meant. It also put the distance between Sweden and Estonia at 300 miles; Stockholm and Tallinn are about 250 miles apart, although the nearest points between the countries’ mainlands are only about 130 miles apart.
